Santiago de Chile: After the world's 8th strongest earthquake (Part I)

It was 7 in the morning when my phone rang on Saturday. I was so out of it I did not even recognize the voice of my boss who was letting me know that a massive earthquake shook neighboring Chile. He told me to wake up, wash my face and drink warm milk as I sounded like a beaten down transvestite after a week of cigarette smoking with my best friend (note to oneself: stop smoking asap).

I managed to do all that, and turned on the tv, internet, and tried calling Santiago.  There were initial reports from the capital, but nothing from its almost-epicenter, the second biggest city of the country, Concepcion. Hit by a 8.8 richter scale earthquake for almost 2 minutes! This was going to be a major catastrophe, I told myself, and remembered the earthquake I have lived through in 1999 back home. 40 thousand death, and that only lasted for 45 secs.

I started working right away, first images were scary and immediate tsunami alert was issued as the epicenter of the earthquake was actually in the middle of the Pacific ocean. And yet the tsunami destroyed further the coastal towns of Chile, tens of fishermen villages dissapeared in front of us. At the end of the day, Chile was facing one of the worst aftermaths of a disaster, not so many casualties but millions of dollars of damage. We decided that I needed to go there asap.

As I was calling to find out if I could get a ticket to Santiago, they announced that the airport had structural damage and that it was going to be closed until further notice.  My travel agent suggested going to Mendoza ( I always dreamt of going there for a weekend to taste wine) and finding there a vehicle to cross the border. I had no choice but accepting it, and booked a ticket for sunday morning.

Aeroparque (Buenos Aires's national flights leave from this airport) was packed with journalists when I arrived. Boxes of equipment waited to be checked in, tired european and american men tweeted, texted and screamed at times to the Aerolineas Argentinas personnel who as usual took their time. It was almost entertaining to me to watch people who have to idea how things worked in this continent. I walked through the mess, found the empty first class counter,  smiled and asked how the person on the counter was that morning and checked in right away to the first plane to Mendoza.

As we were waiting to board the plane, I saw a group of guys with camera bags speaking in proper Spanish. I asked if they were going to Santiago as well and how they were going to manage it. Their leader said they were a production team that rented their services to journalist, in fact they were just coming back from Haiti and introduced me to 3 Chileans he met that morning who wanted to leave immediately, we made an agreement to rent a car together and cross the border.

Mendoza was waking up to a hot and dry day, as usual, just like I thought it would be.  While waiting for our vehicle (all rental cars were out so we opted for a local guide and his jeep), all I could see was vineyards and Andes Mountains behind them. Martin, our guide/driver picked us up soon after and we hit the road. He kept mentioning that it is going to be a tough trip due to damaged roads up in the mountains and that he had no idea what was waiting for us across the border.

Andes Mountains form a natural border between Chile and Argentina. They are the world's longest continental mountain range, over 7000 km long. We crossed first the occidental and then the oriental cordillera to reach Santiago, we drove past the highest peak of the range, Aconcagua Peak (6962 mts), which was covered with snow even in the middle of south american summer. As Martin foresaw, the highway was totally damaged and it was packed with trucks as the only way to enter Chile was throught the Los Libertadores border.

It took us 7 hours to make a trip of 380 kms. Border patrol was really nice to us, and made our passing pretty fast and painless--Martin told us that usually they check every pocket of every corner of suitcases. They told us that there was no electricity in most parts of the city and to be very careful of the people who were attacking vehicles and houses.

The road was pitch black but the full moon above us helped. Not even the Chileans recognize their country. We were driving very carefully. Every once in a while we saw bong fires and people with sticks and baseball bats, protecting their streets. As we entered a neighborhood to drop the guy who just had a baby a week ago, his middle class neighborhood that did not have almost any damage looked pretty much like a movie: a group of armed guys running after a bunch of kids who tried to rob the small supermarket, followed by sirens, screaming women and children (have you seen the mexican movie La Zona? very much like that). We dropped him and continue to the city. We were the only car in the road, Santiago was deserted, war like.

Thanks to my trip companions I found a hotel that had an available room, with electricity and internet. There were many people sleeping in the lobby, kids crying, waking up screaming with fear of another earthquake. It was not a nice site. Recepcionist told the that the only available room was on the 17th floor ! I went upstairs, took a shower and lay down but could feel a bunch of aftershocks so wore my shoes and clothes on--in case I needed to run out of there!

Monday morning we shoot our first live story from the center of town. The spanish camera crew was installed there and my network arranged us to meet up and send my first story about the situation in Santiago. I worked all day long, saw a couple of seriously damaged buildings, but mostly it seemed like Santiago was recovering slowly from the quake.  Meanwhile in Concepcion people were desperate to get food and water, and protection from others who loot stores and houses, as well as approximately 350 inmates who escaped prison. Due to social unrest, the president decided to send troops (10 thousand) to Concepcion and started curfew from 6 pm to 12 pm everyday.

The main highway that connects Chile also was in bad shape and after the curfew alert, all the bus companies cancelled their trips down south, Taxis were asking an arm and a leg to take me there, I was desperate to get out of Santiago, that's when I met Mauricio. He was at the bus station, trying to get to Conce, his family lived in a nearby town and he was not sure how they were. He told me that he heard of a pirate bus service for tuesday night and he convinced me that we would get there, sooner or later.